How to determine the MAC address of a device without a direct connection to a WiFi network?

Question

Do it yourself

Hello.
I must say right away that I am not at all strong in the innards of wireless networks.
I remembered here that somewhere I saw a description of how WiFi devices (phones, for example) look for networks - they send some kind of packet to nowhere with some data about themselves (like just a mac address) and wait for answers from access points. I'm trying to google at least some more or less detailed description of this moment, but I'm doing something wrong and I find absolutely not what I need.
I would be very grateful for any hints - both the name of the process itself, RFC numbers, and examples of how to get mac addresses of surrounding devices using some msp430 or any other controller.
The ultimate goal is to collect everyone, or to determine the presence of a specific mac address in the area of ​​​​the access point made on some controller.
Thanks in advance :)

Answer 1

Kismet is able to show the clients of a specific access point. If you need details - catch them traffic and see what goes where in Wireshark

Answer 2

www.tamos.ru/products/commwifi - for Windows
airodump-ng for Linux